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The Reception of CS Lewis in Britain and America

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The Reception of CS Lewis in Britain and America i The Reception of C. S. Lewis in Britain and America Stephanie L. Derrick Department of History and Politics School of Arts and Humanities University of Stirling A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor David W. Bebbington 30 September 2013 ii I, Stephanie L. Derrick, declare that this thesis has been composed by me and that the work which it embodies is my work and has not been included in another thesis. iii Acknowledgements Support has been extended to me by many people while I was doing research and writing for this dissertation. Professor David Hempton encouraged me when the idea for the project took root in his course on Evangelicalism, back in 2007. Professor David Bebbington has been attentive and patient in the process of seeing it through as a dissertation at the University of Stirling and to him I am truly grateful. Special thanks to Laura Schmidt at the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois, as well as library staff at the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Library, the BBC Written Archives Centre, especially Samantha Blake, the Seven Stories Collection in Newcastle, especially Paula Wride, the British Library, the Penguin Archive in Bristol, and the Wilson Library in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Gratitude is extended to the Royal Historical Society for a travel bursary. Thanks also are due Walter Hooper, Dr. Michael Ward, Dr. Chris Mitchell, Dr. Marjorie Mead, Dr. Lucy Pearson, Dr. Emma Macleod and to the many others who have given me guidance. I want to express my true gratitude to the people who took time from their busy schedules to speak with me about C. S. Lewis’s reception. For reading (or listening to me read) chapters of my dissertation my gratitude is extended to Alicia Broggi, Dr. Nathan Barczi and Leann Barczi, Morgan Currie, Jeff Derrick, Dr. Kristina Glicksman, Dr. Jeremy Kidwell, Dr. Jonathan Kirkpatrick, Rebecca Manor, Dr. Joseph Rivera and Pam Warren. For technical help I thank Diana Hall and Jeff Derrick. I thank my lovely sister, Erin Clarke Bell, for her support. This dissertation would not have been possible without the steadfast care of my husband, Jeff Derrick, and I cannot thank him too often. iv Abstract Since the publication of the book The Screwtape Letters in 1942, ‘C. S. Lewis’ has been a widely recognized name in both Britain and the United States. The significance of the writings of this scholar of medieval literature, Christian apologist and author of the children’s books The Chronicles of Narnia, while widely recognized, has not previously been investigated. Using a wide range of sources, including archival material, book reviews, monographs, articles and interviews, this dissertation examines the reception of Lewis in Britain and America, comparatively, from within his lifetime until the recent past. To do so, the methodology borrows from the history of the book and history of reading fields, and writes the biography of Lewis’s Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia. By contextualizing the writing of these works in the 1940s and 1950s, the evolution of Lewis’s respective platforms in Britain and America and these works’ reception across the twentieth century, this project contributes to the growing body of work that interrogates the print culture of Christianity. Extensive secondary reading, moreover, permitted the investigation of cultural, intellectual, social and religious factors informing Lewis’s reception, the existence of Lewis devotees in America and the lives of Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia in particular. By paying close attention to the historical conditions of authorship, publication and reception, while highlighting similarities and contrasts between Britain and America, this dissertation provides a robust account of how and why Lewis became one of the most successful Christian authors of the twentieth century. v Table of Contents List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................................vi Chapter One: Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Chapter Two: The Context for the Writing of The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity.................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter Three: The Platform of C. S. Lewis in Britain and America ................................ 74 Chapter Four: A Tale of Two Canons: The Chronicles of Narnia in Britain and America 139 Chapter Five: Idea, Teaching Tool and Something Shared: The Life of Mere Christianity in Religious Communities ......................................................................... 211 Chapter Six: Earnest Belief, Upward Mobility: Higher Education and C. S. Lewis Devotees ................................................................................................................................... 256 Chapter Seven: Conclusion.......................................................................................... 312 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 326 vi List of Abbreviations BBC WAC – British Broadcasting Corporation Written Archives Centre Bodl. – The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Bulletin –The New York C. S. Lewis Society Bulletin Chronicles – The Chronicles of Narnia Hooper Papers, UNC – Walter McGee Hooper Papers #04236, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lewis -- C. S. Lewis The Lion – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Wade – Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois Archive i Chapter One Introduction The subject of this dissertation is the reception in Britain and America of the writings of the British scholar, author and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), from the period of his lifetime until the early years of the twenty-first century. A prolific writer, Lewis came to fame in the early 1940s through two roughly simultaneous events: the phenomenal success of his book The Screwtape Letters, an imagined dialogue between a senior and a novice devil on the art of temptation, published in 1941, and a series of radio broadcasts he delivered over the BBC from 1941 to 1944 on the subject of Christianity. From that time until the present, the name of C. S. Lewis has been one widely familiar to both the British and American publics, with The Chronicles of Narnia, his series of fantasy books for children, playing an important part. The puzzle of why this Oxford don and his writings have continued to fascinate American Christians, especially, is one that has been pondered by many over the years. Yet no one, until now, has researched the topic in depth. The subject promises to reveal much about the conjunction of historical, cultural and religious factors that have made Lewis’s reception the phenomenon it is. This introduction will review the relevant secondary literature and explain the objectives and methodology of the project. Review of the Literature The appearance of articles in mainstream periodicals noting Lewis’s popularity is a testament to the interest the subject has held for a wide public. In the States, Lewis’s 2 appearance on the cover of Time magazine, in 1947, was accompanied by the assessment that his large following was ‘the result of Lewis’ special gift for dramatizing Christian dogma’.1 Time followed up on Lewis’s success in 1977 with 'C. S. Lewis Goes Marching On’, describing Lewis as 'the only author in English whose Christian writings combine intellectual stature with bestselling status’.2 In 1988 the subject was again in the American mainstream media when the New York Times published a piece called ‘C. S. Lewis: Gone But Hardly Forgotten’.3 The 1990s and early 2000s saw more of the same in America, particularly accompanying the release of the Walt Disney movie version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005: The New Yorker,4 U. S. News and World Report,5 CNN Belief Blog6 and The New York Times7 all published articles highlighting Lewis’s continuing popularity. The latest to date is ‘C. S. Lewis, Evangelical Rock Star’, in New York Times of 25 June 2013.8 Continued coverage of Lewis in mainstream outlets in the States, over so many decades, is evidence of his remarkable endurance as a cultural figure; but it also underscores the fact that that endurance itself has continued to 1 Anon., ‘Don v Devil’, Time Magazine (8 September 1947), 65. 2 Anon., 'C. S. Lewis Goes Marching On: The Apostle of "Mere Christianity" Converts a New Generation’, Time Magazine (5 December 1977), 92. 3 Michael Nelson, ‘C. S. Lewis: Gone But Hardly Forgotten’, New York Times (22 November 1988), Y27. 4 Adam Gopnik, ‘Prisoner of Narnia: How C. S. Lewis Escaped’, The New Yorker (21 November 2005), http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/21/051121crat_atlarge, accessed 28 September 2013. 5 Jay Tolson, ‘God’s Storyteller,’ U. S. News and World Report (4 December 2005), http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051212/12lewis_6.htm, accessed 20 June 2013. 6 John Blake, ‘Surprised by C. S. Lewis: Why His Popularity Endures’, CNN Belief Blog (17 December 2010), http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/17/surprised-by-c-s-lewis-why-his-popularity-endures/?hpt=C2%3E, accessed 20 June 2013. 7 Mark Oppenheimer, ‘C. S. Lewis’s Legacy Lives On, and Not Just Through the Wardrobe’, New York Times (4 March 2011), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/us/05beliefs.html?_r=0,
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